Facts from Israel.
News, strategic reports, assessments, opinion, facts, information.
All you need to understand and report on Israel in a wider world.

Friday, 14 October 2016

The Temple Mount. The UNESCO vote and Western shame.

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization voted on 13th October against the very principles that it was
created.

UNESCO was founded in 1945 after World War Two to establish humanity's
moral and intellectual solidarity. It says it strives to build networks among
nations to enable this kind of solidarity.

These were its founding principles. Oh, how have the mighty fallen.

With shocking disregard to historic evidence, it insulted and denied the
heritage of two of the world's greatest religions, Judaism and Christianity,
when it passed a resolution that denied Jewish, and therefore Christian, ties
to the Temple Mount.

The October vote shattered thousands of years of faith, belief, historical,
archaeological and literal fact.

It reconfirmed its ignorance five days later by ratifying its insult against
Judaism and Christianity.

In UNESCO, Islam rules and truth is dead. So is Jewish and Christian heritage.

Questions must be raised about why they made such an egregious mistake.
Some will point to the Islamic regimes and undemocratic countries that dominate
too many United Nations forums and are now dictating how they see the world.

But my beef is with the cynical politics of countries that should know
better and must act with moral authority but went missing at this significant
resolution.

It is high time to name and shame those responsible for the passing of this
historic upheaval.
It is hardly surprising to learn that among the nations that eagerly voted for
the UNESCO principle that Jerusalem's Temple Mount is strictly Islamic were
Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Nicaragua,
Nigeria, Oman, and Vietnam.

For the most part that is a given. They are all in denial, ignorant or
uncaring about the Scriptures as geographic and historic evidence that the
Temple Mount was a Jewish construct.

If the tale of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on Mount Moriah, the site on
which the Temple was built is too far-fetched, how about the recorded histories
of King Solomon and King David who built the first and second Temples together
with the corroborating historic timeline that links both events?

And if that doesn't convince you there is a treasure trove of artefacts
that are scientifically proven to be intricately traceable back to
specific periods that prove the authenticity of the Jewish temples and the
events that unfolded there.

Russia voted in favor of the motion, ignoring the millions of Russian
Orthodox Christians it insulted by its vote. But, shockingly, both SOUTH AFRICA
and Mexico also voted that the Temple Mount is Islamic. Where was their
Christian-based conscience? Mexico switched its position by abstaining in
the ratification procedure. Not good enough!

Will we be hearing from the radical South African Christian leader,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu who often struts the world stage spouting moral and
humanitarian values now that the deep center of his religious heart has been
surgically removed by UNESCO?

And what will the Pope say about the decision
of Italy to abstain rather than oppose a vote that strikes at the origins of
his faith?

He was born in Argentina and now the nation of the birth of the Pope
voted on a resolution that says the Jewish Temple Mount did not exist. Ergo –
no Jesus!

For, if there was never a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount there
couldn't have been a Jesus. Ergo - no Christianity!

Not only has UNESCO, with this vote, announced that the Old Testament is
a lie, a historical fiction. It also declared that the New Testament is null
and void.

There were only six nations that voted against the motion that the
Temple Mount has always been and will continue to be an exclusive Islamic holy
site were the United States, Great Britain, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany
and Estonia. That's it! Only six nations had the moral courage to deny an
obvious and internationally impactful lie.

Perhaps the greatest shame lies with some of the nations that, with the
moral cowardice and political cynicism we have come to expect from them in
other UN chambers, decided to go along with the intolerant and stupid regimes
by abstaining.

I know that Europe was once a Christian continent but I did not suspect
that the religious disorientation of countries like Spain, France, Sweden and
Greece would lead them to not look at the meaning of this UNESCO resolution and
vote against it for the lie that it is. Have they really abandoned their
Christian origins so much that they have already disowned them?

Perhaps Sweden
will now remove the cross from its national flag?

As for Italy, what can I say? Together with Spain, they were once the
strong upholders of Catholicism, the Jews will say to an intolerant and
anti-Semitic degree. Jews suffered badly in the past in both these countries.
We recall the Spanish Expulsion and Inquisition of its Jews, a genocide
inspired by the leaders of the Catholic Church.

But, Italy? I invite all Italians, especially their politicians
and diplomats that enabled the passing of this obscene vote, to revisit the
Roman Forum in Rome and stand under the Arch of Titus to look at the ancient
carvings depicting the Roman rape of the Jewish Temple. They will see the
Hebrew slaves being forced to carry the Jewish relics they plundered from
Jerusalem during their conquest, pillage and destruction of our Jewish Temple.

And yet they abstained from this motion? Were they reliving yet another
plunder of the Jewish Temple by cohorting with the Islamic world? For that's
what it looks like to me.

Can we now expect the Pope, as head of the Catholic Church, speak up and
denounce UNESCO?

So far only silence.

Can we expect to hear the voices of any Christian leader
as we are starting to hear the voices of rabbis in every Jewish denomination?

The shame of UNESCO displays itself in the myopia of countries that were
once considered "enlightened nations." Not any more.

The political cynicism and dereliction of their traditional values has
diminished their once valuable influence and enabled intolerant nations to
dominate.

It seems the light of truth and courageous honesty has dimmed
in the democratic world. Will we see a new reformation and a return to the
moral leadership that the world so desperately needs right now as a result of
the profoundly disturbing lurch of UNESCO that has failed in its educational,
scientific and cultural responsibilities?

Don't hold your breath.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel
Institute for Strategic Studies.

2 comments:

Dr. Cyril A. Hromnik 15 October 2016Excellent commentary Mr. Shaw on the shameful vote in the United Nations, where only 6 nations, the United States, Great Britain, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany and Estonia had the knowledge and the moral courage to deny the obvious and internationally impactful lie, “that the Temple Mount has always been and will continue to be an exclusive Islamic holy site.” What Mr. Shaw failed to consider, is, that it were the Jews, Hebrews and Israelites themselves, who in 1948 created the material base and precedent for this shameful vote in the United Nations, when they rejected the God-given name PALESTINA for the Land of the surviving descendants of the Biblical Jews, Hebrews and Israelites and misapplied to it the confessional name of only one of the three Biblical segments – namely ISRAEL. Israel was and always should be the name of the portion of the God’s people, who left the God-Promised Land in Kena’an (Cana’an) and after some 430 years in Egypt returned to the God-Given Land known by the God-given name PALESTINA.By rejecting the God-given name PALESTINA, the Jews, Hebrews and Israelites spurned the God’s greatest gift to His people and offered it to the Muslims, who at that time had not yet existed and the World had to wait another 2000 years for their emergence.The Jews, Hebrews and Israelites should have known it in 1948, that throwing away the God’s Gift PALESTINA, would be the source of their mighty problems ever after….Now, that the last of the Great founders of the state they misnamed Israel has passed away, it is not too late to reconsider the error made by their leaders in 1948 and rename the misnamed State of Israel by the God-given name PALESTINA. This name never and until recently did not appeal to the Muslim neighbors of the Jewish, Hebrew and Israelite PALESTINA. The time is ripe for the Jews, Hebrews and Israelites to reestablish the broken connections with their God-given Biblical roots. 15Oc2016